Summary: A challenge fic for Rowena DeVandal's One Thousand Words or Less Challenge: August. This was Prompt Challenge.
Spoilers:Orihime being taken to Hueco Mundo. That is all.
Pairings: Ulquiorra X Orihime – if you squirm.
Beta: Goddess of Crimson Sand. Thank you, you are awesome.
"What do you expect, a miracle?" His passive monotone disturbed the silence.
Orihime shuddered, tears rolling down her cheeks, and falling on the cool floor. She tried to find power in herself to speak but all her courage seemed to abandon her. She looked down on the floor as if trying to find something worth answering him there, but she could not.
"Ulquiorra…" His name fell from her lips almost as a sigh.
"Woman, you are truly foolish. Your friends will not come after you. Stop living in this illusion, they will not come. You have to stop fooling yourself."
Orihime didn't dare to look at him. Something inside her mind told her that he was right and no one would come, but her heart told her that they would. That her Kurosaki-kun would save her.
"They will," She managed to say. They will. Kurosaki-kun will. He will. She thought. But tears continued to fall down onto the cold, white floor.
Sometimes she would chant these words at night, under her covers and for a small part of a second she truly believed it. But then the shallow, bitter feeling of being left alone and forgotten came rolling back with a new force and all she could do was cry.
Orihime was not weak. Of course, she wasn't as powerful as Ichigo, Rukia and others, but she was strong with her heart, her faith. Even if this strength wasn't visible it was still a truly great one and no one could take this away from her, or so she thought. However, since she traveled to Hueco Mundo she found it strangely being taken away from her, leaving her empty.
It was not a pleasant feeling.
Orihime continued to stare at the cold floor, tears running down her cheeks and falling onto the cold surface.
"You can take away my freedom, but please Ulquiorra-sama, don't take away my faith,"She whispered and looked at him.
Her eyelashes still moist from tears and her eyes pleading for help, she knew he would not understand her, she knew he would just walk away. And to say the truth Orihime didn't expect him to do anything, he would not understand her – she knew this.
Ulquiorra just turned around and started walking to the door. He turned the doorknob; it clicked. He didn't turn around to look at her: "If it makes you feel better to believe that, go right ahead."
Fin.